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Alright, now that I've had some time to get my thoughts in order, here's my opinion of the game.

It's great. Really. It's everything I hoped it would be.

The graphics are gorgeous, I really love the environments and the character/creature models, and the 3D works really well. The music is fantastic, of course. There are a lot of really good remixes in the game, not just from Metroid II but also other titles in the series.

I'm tempted to say this is the best-controlling 2D Metroid game ever. Being able to aim in 360 degrees is excellent. Samus controls really well, taking the best of her maneuverability from previous 2D games and adding in a few improvements (being able to dive into a somersault from a regular jump is really handy, for example). I was a bit worried about the melee counters, but once you get used to they work really well. The ability to aim freely and counter combined with the heavy damage enemies tend to do make combat a lot more action-oriented than in the past.

Speaking of damage, the game is also pretty hard, probably one of the hardest games in the franchise. This is especially true early on when you only have a couple of Energy Tanks at most, but the game manages to remain pretty difficult throughout. You will die a lot.

Spoiler.

I think 80% of my deaths came from Diggernaut, both during the chase sequence and the actual boss battle. It felt good to finally decommission that bastard.

The Aeion abilities are a nice addition. I was worried they'd be a pointless addition to the Metroid formula, but I ended up liking them and they got a lot of use from me. They definitely don't break the game as some had worried, and outside of one or two situations I think using them is entirely optional.

I can't think of many complaints, and the few that I can are fairly minor.

Spoiler.

There isn't a lot of enemy variety. A lot of the stronger enemies encountered in later areas are merely beefed-up palette swaps of earlier enemies. It's not an enormous problem, but it does get rather repetitive after a while.

Having to chase Gamma Metroids from room to room made the fights more annoying than it did difficult.

At no point that I'm aware of does the game hint that you can propel yourself through the air using Power Bombs in conjunction with the Spider Ball, despite this trick being necessary to reach a number of powerups. It seems you either have to really be thinking outside the box, or just try everything and get lucky.

Overall it's a fantastic game, and a return to form for the franchise. I'm really, really happy we finally got another Metroid game like this. If you haven't gotten this yet, do it.

I thought it was great. Not the best game in the series, but certainly better than say Fusion. Playing it makes me wonder why the hell it took so long to make. Well, in the grand scheme of the universe, I mean.

Random Pros and Cons (No big spoilers):

Spoiler.

+ Metroid battles are dynamic and fair, due in part to the aiming system and the melee counter.
+ New upgrades are great in a series that has kind of fallen into a rut when it comes to unique upgrades post-Super. It is legitimately nice to ask "what does that item do"? in a new Metroid game in 2017.
+ Missiles are actually useful for most of the game.
+ Pacing is quick to the point.
+ Slightly more difficult than expected, which was nice.
+ The Melee counter is swift and allows the game to make enemies more aggressive in general.

- I thought the major boss battles were pretty mediocre, due to most them taking forever. Diggernaut for example has like 3 phases and becomes genuinely tedious.
- Areas feel a bit too bloated and kind of blend together. I think Area 3 is probably the most extreme example of this.
- Music is pretty lowkey. I think some people will like that, I wasn't much of a fan.
- The game is kind of victim to its origin game in terms of structure, being very transparently level-based. They stayed faithful to the original game, make of that as you will.

^ I cheer every time the special melee/missile combo succeeds, because IT'S AWESOME.

Landing a careful counter against the very occasional Metroid lunge is definitely a great gaming moment, IMO. So is using the grapple against the Zetas. I love how agile and aggressive they feel while still keeping their distance most of the time, and taking those risks for the payoff is a great feeling.

I finally finished the normal mode last night, also. I was accidentally spoiled on the ending due to reading what should've been an unrelated wiki entry, but was still not wholly expecting the entirety of it. I can imagine others might criticise any deviation from the original source, but I really enjoyed it all the same and the last fight was frenzied enough to have my hand cramping from gripping the system so tightly.

My overall verdict is this a great and deserved entry in Metroid overall which sidesteps the general awkwardness of Zero Mission's change of pace and polish in its latter segment, the somewhat uncomfortably forced nature of Fusion's plot delivery, and virtually all of the nonsense character assassination and forced failures of Other M. The melee taps are very well integrated and the new aiming system and powerups as well as the obstacles all felt very well-balanced despite any initial reservations I had. I would say that it is probably my favorite 2D entry in Metroid after Super, just edging out Zero Mission for merit of proper visual story-telling and presentation as well as skipping all of the sometimes-unpleasant cat-and-mouse of that game's outro as well as the utterly pointless plotholes the space pirate mothership introduces to the flawless Metroid 3's various premises.
.

I muttered 'light as a board, stiff as a feather' for 2 days straight and now I've ascended, ;aughing at olympus and zeus is crying

Almost done with the game. Just two quick thoughts as I'm doing item collection:

-The Scan Pulse is great, and I like how you can tell ever-so-slightly what areas you've scanned even when the range goes beyond rooms on the map. It prevents me from thinking "Is there something else over there that I didn't scan?" Because I can see the big box where my scan range went, regardless of the presence of rooms.

-Some of the puzzles make inventive use of block respawning. "Can you get back to the item in time before the blocks all come back" is a more prevalent theme in item collection than I ever remember it being.

Almost done with the game. Just two quick thoughts as I'm doing item collection:

-The Scan Pulse is great, and I like how you can tell ever-so-slightly what areas you've scanned even when the range goes beyond rooms on the map. It prevents me from thinking "Is there something else over there that I didn't scan?" Because I can see the big box where my scan range went, regardless of the presence of rooms.

-Some of the puzzles make inventive use of block respawning. "Can you get back to the item in time before the blocks all come back" is a more prevalent theme in item collection than I ever remember it being.

-Melee counter = goooooooood stuff

The block/timing puzzles were very good use of what was otherwise being underutilised in Metroid. Going through it felt a lot like playing Super in many ways, where the introduction to something wasn't the only use of a concept but they became more complex as the game progresses. That is a huuuuuge deal in game design, and it's really great feeling to see this kind of approach be so emphasized in Metroid. Mercury Steam did a fantastic job in this particular area. The game felt like it was only nudging me through the progression of the designer's intent and the puzzle solutions were all largely satisfying. I'm a bit amused by how much I was able to sequence break and otherwise by merit of the bomb jump, it's the most useful it's been since Super as well.

I muttered 'light as a board, stiff as a feather' for 2 days straight and now I've ascended, ;aughing at olympus and zeus is crying

I loved it. It felt so good to play a new 2D Metroid game. It felt so good to be playing a new Metroid game at all in this the year of our Lord Two Thousand Seventeen. Here are some random positive and negative thoughts.

+The standing and omnidirectional fire was awesome. It's an evolution of the angle up/down control from previous games, and it's exactly as functional as it needs to be. I'm gonna miss that when I go re-play Super.

+I'm so glad that this game exists, because Metroid II so desperately needed to be remade. I had given up hope on it happening at all. This part of the storyline needed to be more accessible, since it is a crucial lead-in to Super. After playing this and AM2R, I really don't feel the urge to go back and play Metroid II...ever again.

+Speaking of AM2R, I'm really glad to say that I do think Samus Returns is an all-around better game. AM2R is a more true-to-the-original remake, and that's awesome in its own right. But I love that the SR team took chances and added new abilities and new puzzles and things. I could tell the map was based on Metroid II, but it wasn't slavish.

+The checkpointing in this game was very generous, and I was thankful for it. I got kinda reckless as a result of that fact, but I could afford to play a little fast and loose, which I enjoyed.

+There's certainly more I could say, but for now I'll leave at this: the game just felt very nice. As in, it felt good to play. Movement was crisp and responsive. Nothing felt terribly unfair. I died a lot, but never to a frustrating or demoralizing degree. This game is just great.

-As Val said, chasing Omegas from room to room was more annoying than challenging. I think they wanted to force you to use the Metroid Radar functionality, but it was just tedious.

-I'm not quite sure why...

Spoiler.

they shoehorned Meta Ridley in at the end of the game. It was fine, but it kinda makes the flow into Super Metroid a little less smooth. I liked the fight--probably the coolest Melee Counter in the game--but the whole time I was just thinking "why are you here, tho?"

Best Metroid game since Prime. Phenomenal stuff. I still think Super is the best game in the series, but between Prime and Samus Returns, it's officially a toss-up for 2nd place.

Betas are the ones that flee from strong women but you can actually kill them early by doing enough damage as they try to escape. For instance, in late game I managed to kill one in the room in spawned when usually it escapes to at least 2 other rooms.

I'm not sure if the game itself lists any enemy/boss names, I just recalled (but not accurately) the Metroid names from Metroid 2. The Metroid hierarchy goes Larva->Alpha->Gamma->Zeta->Omega->Queen. (there are no Beta Metroids, whoops ) Samus Returns also has greener versions of Alphas and Gammas (and maybe Zetas, I don't recall) that are slightly stronger.